Frequency distribution of word order in languages surveyed by Russell S. Tomlin in 1980s[1][2] (

)

Among natural languages with a word order preference, SOV is the most common type (followed by subject–verb–object; the two types account for more than 75% of natural languages with a preferred order).[3]

Standard Mandarin is SVO, but for simple sentences with a clear context, word order is flexible enough to allow for SOV or OSV. German and Dutch are considered SVO in conventional typology and SOV in generative grammar. For example, in German, a basic sentence such as "Ich sage etwas über Karl" ("I say something about Karl") is in SVO word order. When a noun clause marker like "dass" or "wer" (in English, "that" or "who" respectively) is used, the verb appears at the end of the sentence for the word order SOV. A possible example in SOV word order would be "Ich sage, dass Karl einen Gürtel gekauft hat." (A literal English translation would be "I say that Karl a belt bought has.") This is V2 word order.

A rare example of SOV word order in English is "I (subject) thee (object) wed (verb)" in the wedding vow "With this ring, I thee wed."[4]

Properties

SOV languages have a strong tendency to use postpositions rather than prepositions, to place auxiliary verbs after the action verb, to place genitive noun phrases before the possessed noun, to place a name before a title or honorific ("James Uncle" and "Johnson Doctor" rather than "Uncle James" and "Doctor Johnson") and to have subordinators appear at the end of subordinate clauses. They have a weaker but significant tendency to place demonstrative adjectives before the nouns they modify. Relative clauses preceding the nouns to which they refer usually signals SOV word order, but the reverse does not hold: SOV languages feature prenominal and postnominal relative clauses roughly equally. SOV languages also seem to exhibit a tendency towards using a time–manner–place ordering of adpositional phrases.

In linguistic typology one can usefully distinguish two types of SOV language in terms of their type of marking:

dependent-marking has casemarkers to distinguish the subject and the object, which allows it to use the variant OSV word order without ambiguity. This type usually places adjectives and numerals before the nouns they modify and is exclusively suffixing without prefixes. SOV languages of this first type include Japanese and Tamil.

head-marking distinguishes subject and object by affixes on the verb rather than markers on the nouns. It also differs from the dependent-marking SOV language in using prefixes as well as suffixes, usually for tense and possession. Because adjectives in this type are much more verb-like than in dependent-marking SOV languages, they usually follow the nouns. In most SOV languages with a significant level of head-marking or verb-like adjectives, numerals and related quantifiers (like "all", "every") also follow the nouns they modify. Languages of this type include Navajo and Seri.

In practice, of course, the distinction between these two types is far from sharp. Many SOV languages are substantially double-marking and tend to exhibit properties intermediate between the two idealised types above.

Dutch

Dutch is SOV combined with V2 word order. The non-finite verb (infinitive or participle) remains in final position, but the finite (i.e. inflected) verb is moved to the second position. Simple verbs look like SVO, non-finite verbs (participles, infinitives) and compound verbs follow this pattern:

Sentence

Ik wil je helpen.

Parts

Ik

wil

je

helpen

Gloss

I

want

you

to help

Parts

subject

fin.verb

object

nonfin.verb

Translation

I want to help you.

Pure SOV order is found in subordinate clauses:

Sentence

Ik zei dat ik je wil helpen.

Parts

Ik

zei

dat

ik

je

wil

helpen

Gloss

I

said

that

I

you

want

to help

Parts

subject

fin.verb

subord. conj.

subject

object

fin.verb

nonfin.verb

Translation

I said that I want to help you.

French

The French language usually uses a subject–verb–object structure, but when using most pronouns, it places enclitics before the verb. That is sometimes mistaken for SOV word order.

Sentence

Nous les avons.

Parts

Nous

les-avons.

Gloss

We

them/those-have

Parts

Subject

Object-Verb

Translation

We have those/them

German

German is SOV combined with V2 word order. The non-finite verb (infinitive or participle) remains in final position, but the finite (i.e. inflected) verb is moved to the second position. Simple verbs look like SVO, compound verbs follow this pattern:

Sentence

Words

Er

hat

einen Apfel

gegessen

Gloss

He

has

an apple

eaten

Parts

Subject

Auxiliary

Object

Verb

Translation

He ate an apple.

The word order changes also depending on whether the phrase is a main clause or a dependent clause. In dependent clauses, the word order is always entirely SOV (cf. also Inversion):

Japanese

The markers が (ga) and を (o) are, respectively, subject and object markers for the words that precede them. Technically, the sentence could be translated a number of ways ("I open a box", "It is I who open the boxes", etc.), but this does not affect the SOV analysis.

Japanese has some flexibility in word order, so an OSV is also possible. (箱を私が開けます。)

Kazakh

Kyrgyz

Sentence

Биз алма жедик

Words

Биз

алма

жедик

Transliteration

Biz

alma

jedik

Gloss

We

an apple

ate

Parts

Subject

Object

Verb

Translation

We ate an apple

Kashmiri

Like German and Dutch the Indo-Aryan language Kashmiri is SOV combined with V2 word order. The non-finite verb (infinitive or participle) remains in final position, but the finite (i.e. inflected) part of the verb appears in second position. Simple verbs look like SVO, whereas auxiliated verbs are discontinuous and adhere to this pattern:

Sentence

کور چہے ثونٹہ کہیوان

Transcription

kuur

chhi

tsũũţh

khyevaan

Gloss

girl

is

apples

eating

Parts

Subject

Auxiliary

Object

Verb

Translation

The girl is eating apples.

Since Kashmiri is a V2 language if the word tsũũţh 'apple' comes first then the subject kuur 'girl' must follow the auxiliary chhi 'is': tsũũţh chhi kuur khyevaan [Lit. "Apples is girl eating."]

Korean

'가 (ga)/이 (i)' is a particle that indicates the nominative case. '를 (reul)/을 (eul)' is a particle that indicates the accusative case. '-ㄴ다 (nda)' indicates present tense declarative. The consonant 'ㄹ (l)' in the verb stem (열-) is dropped before the suffix.

Persian

Portuguese

Portuguese is an SVO language, but it has some SOV constructs, though they tend to sound excessively formal or bookish in Brazil (as do other constructs that are more prominent in Portugal), never being used colloquially in said country – it can even be said that it is foreign to Vernacular Brazilian Portuguese, in the case of the theory that Brazil's spoken and informal written registers present a diglossia.

When using a temporal adverb, optionally with the negative:

Nós já [não] os temos. Literally: We already [not] them have. Meaning: (Positive) We already have them. (Negative) We do not have them anymore.

Nós ainda [não] os temos. Literally: We still [not] them have. Meaning: (Positive) We still have them. (Negative) We have do not them yet..

for example: Она любит его, любит его oна, любит oна его, and virtually all re-orderings of Russian sentence order are correct although this is often used in different situations to emphasize particular constituents of a sentence. Who loves him? 'she' is the one who loves him (emphatic meaning). In this way any part of the sentence can be emphasized without changing basic meaning (a convenience created by Russian's noun case system)

Spanish

The Spanish language usually uses a subject–verb–object structure, but when an enclitic pronoun is used, this comes before the verb and the auxiliary. Sometimes, in dual-verb constructions involving the infinitive and the gerund, the enclitic pronoun can be put before both verbs, or attached to the end of the second verb.

The தான் (tān) and யை (yai) are, respectively, nominative and accusative markers for the subject and object that respectively precede them. The தான் (tān) is optional in the Tamil language. The sentence may literally be translated as 'I [who am] the box [which] open shall.'

The sentence may also be translated, although less frequently, as பெட்டியை நான் தான் திறப்பேன் (Peṭṭiyai nāṉ tāṉ tiṟappēn), or simply, பெட்டியை திறப்பேன் (Peṭṭiyai tiṟappēn) as Tamil is a null-subject language because the indicative verb at the end of the word indicates the 1st person subject. This follows the object-subject-verb (OSV) pattern.

Telugu

Turkish

Sentence

Yusuf elmayı yedi.

Words

Yusuf

elmayı

yedi

Gloss

Joseph

the apple

ate

Parts

Subject

Object

Verb

Translation

Joseph ate the apple.

Like all other Turkic languages, Turkish has flexibility in word order, so any order is possible. For example, in addition to the SOV order above, this sentence could also be constructed as OSV (Elmayı Yusuf yedi.), OVS (Elmayı yedi Yusuf.), VSO (Yedi Yusuf elmayı.), VOS (Yedi elmayı Yusuf.), or SVO (Yusuf yedi elmayı.), but these other orders carry a connotation of emphasis of importance on either the subject, object, or the verb. The SOV order is the "default" one that does not connote particular emphasis on any part of the sentence.

Udmurt

Sentence

мoн книгa лыӟӥcькo.

Words

мoн

книгa

лыӟӥcькo.

Gloss

I

a book

to read

Parts

Subject

Object

Verb

Translation

I am reading a book.

Yi

Sentence

ꉢꌧꅪꋠ.

Words

ꉢ

ꌧꅪ

ꋠ .

Romaniz.

nga

syp-hni

zze.

Gloss

I

(an) apple

(to) eat.

Parts

Subject

Object

Verb

Translation

I eat an apple.

Uzbek

Sentence

Anvar Xivaga ketdi.

Words

Anvar

Xivaga

ketdi.

Gloss

Anvar (nom)

to Khiva (dat)

went

Parts

Subject

Object

Verb

Translation

Anvar went to Khiva.

The marker "ga" is a dative case marker for the object that precedes it.
Due to flexibility in word order in Uzbek, it is possible to transform the sentence into OSV as well ("Xivaga Anvar ketdi" / "It was Anvar who went to Khiva").

↑ Andreas Fischer, "'With this ring I thee wed': The verbs to wed and to marry in the history of English". Language History and Linguistic Modelling: A Festschrift for Jacek Fisiak on his 60th Birthday. Ed. Raymond Hickey and Stanislaw Puppel. Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 101 (Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997), pp.467-81